45 results arranged by date

A sharp increase in the number of Ethiopian journalists fleeing into exile has been recorded by the Committee to Protect Journalists in the past 12 months. More than 30--twice the number of exiles CPJ documented in 2012 and 2013 combined--were forced to leave after the government began a campaign of arrests. In October, Nicole Schilit of CPJ's Journalist Assistance program and Martial Tourneur of partner group Reporters Without Borders traveled to Nairobi in Kenya to meet some of those forced to flee.

Al-Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fadel Fahmy has been languishing in an Egyptian prison since December. He is waiting for an appeal hearing on his seven-year sentence for "conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood," but it is the murder of American freelancer James Foley, rather than his own unjust sentence, that has made the Cairo bureau chief furious. Fahmy sees the solidarity in response to Foley's killing as an opportunity to gain global support for distressed journalists in Egypt.

Tags:

Considering the
worst-case scenarios for post-2014 Afghanistan, international news agencies
should start planning a range of assistance responses for locally hired journalists
and media staff. By the end of 2014, NATO troops will have largely withdrawn
and the Karzai government will make way for a new administration. If the
situation becomes chaotic, Afghans working for foreign and local media could
become targets for retribution for their work as journalists.

With the launch of CPJ's most recent exile report, I will
have worked exactly three years for our Journalist Assistance
program. More than 500 cases later, I have helped journalists who have gone into hiding or exile to escape
threats; those in need of medicine and other support while in prison, and
journalists injured after violent attacks. The most harrowing accounts of
all, however, come from those crossing from Eritrea into Sudan. And things seem
to be getting worse, not better.

Crisis in East Africa

Fifty-seven journalists fled their country in the past year, with Somalia sending the
greatest number into exile. Journalists also fled Ethiopia, Eritrea, and
Rwanda--mostly for Kenya and Uganda. Exiles in East Africa must grapple with
poverty and fear. A CPJ special report by María Salazar-Ferro and Tom Rhodes

CPJ's
Journalist Assistance Program supports journalists who cannot be helped by
advocacy alone. In 2011, we assisted 171 journalists worldwide. Almost
a fourth came from countries that made CPJ's Most Censored list. Eight journalists from Eritrea,
five from Syria, six from Cuba, and a whopping 20 from Iran sought our help
after being forced to leave their countries, having suffered the consequences
of defying censorship at home.

In 2010, following midsummer negotiations between the
Catholic Church and the government of President Raúl Castro, Cuban authorities
began releasing imprisoned journalists, sending them into forced exile with their
families. In April 2011, the last of more than 20 journalists arrived in Spain.
They had been granted liberty and respite, and were promised support from
Spanish authorities while they settled into the new country. But almost two
years after the first crop of journalists arrived in Spain, the four who remain
in the country are living under extremely difficult
conditions, struggling even to feed themselves.

Desperate realities call for hope. It is
not just a game of words, because you don't play with hunger and the future (my
own and my family's). It is about going deeper into another version of
circumstances. And seeing the rainbow where others see a gloomy sun and a
stubborn and relentless rain.

I am writing this declaration of optimism now that the Spanish government has withdrawn the financial aid that it had provided us, when in the summer of 2010, directly from the Cuban jails, we arrived as former prisoners of conscience along with others there just by coincidence, or not.

Veteran Somali radio journalist Hassan Mohamed, 45, died early
yesterday morning in Eastleigh, a Nairobi suburb. He had fled Mogadishu in
2010, having been threatened, kidnapped, and shot twice. One of hundreds of
Somali refugees in Kenya, many of them journalists, Hassan struggled to support
himself and survive worsening diabetes-related ailments, despite relentless
support from Somali colleagues and friends, including CPJ. His death highlights
the plight of exiled journalists in East Africa.

Tags:

As journalists continue to be targeted, the government of Asif Ali Zardari has shown itself unable and unwilling to stand up for a free press. Whatever solutions exist will have to be found by people in the profession. By Bob Dietz